But That's Life, Isn't It?
by Violet Strange
Summary: With a mixture of drugs, sex, and death, my childhood died. And I gave it a proper burial, I guess. Helga tells us about one of the most difficult times in her life. slight AU. MEntions of sex, cusing, drug use, etc. Rated for a reason.


I don't remember why I started. But I remember the first time I stole a cigarette from Bob. I was a freshman, and it had calmed me. I didn't cough or sputter or choke like I've seen some people do on their first cig, which made me proud as hell.

I believe that it was a year and three months after that I first had pot. God, was that GOOD. After that, I had a routine; Come home, do homework (Hey, I had to get out of that crap shack somehow; Bob and Miriam sure as hell weren't going to pay for It.) and light up and listen to Hole and try to play Doll Parts by ear. Soon I was dressing like Courtney Love and chopped off my hair, which had faded to a dirty blonde over the years. I painted my eyes black and smoked cigs after school, and made my friends worry like hell.

I was a senior, that year Olga got sick. Leukemia. When I first found out, I was in shock. I mean, you only hear about that in little kids who want to go to Disneyland, right? I don't know how many times I'd wished death on my older sister, but I never thought it would happen. Then I snapped up. This was OLGA. She'd make a quick recovery and have an excuse from doing anything all her life.

But she didn't get better. After she lost her hair from chemo, Bob bought her a thousand dollars in hats and wigs, none of which she wore, because she refused to go out. I started to take a Cher-looking one to play at clubs.

Then started to lose weight. Seriously. She was super-model material before, but now, she looked anorexic. It was then she called to me.

I had been sneaking past her open door as quietly as I could with combat boots on when I herd her wheeze, "Baby sister?"

I stopped, scared. I hadn't spoken in this house since Olga had moved back in. I kept my music on a disk man and had silently strummed above the strings of my Fender (purchased with money stolen from Miriam's purse). What had I done to draw attention to myself?

"Baby sister, could you come here?" Every breath was so strained, sounding like a death knell. I gulped and entered the room quietly.

"Hey, Olga." I said casually, like she wasn't lying on her childhood bed, slowly wasting away.

"Baby sister," She paused, then smiled wearily, and corrected herself. "You're not a baby anymore, are you, Helga? I know what you've been doing. You think we can't smell it. Mommy and Daddy have ignored it. But I can't."

Oh, shit. Was she going to report me to the cops? "Can't get anything pass you, Olga, can I?" I said with a smirk. Play it cool. Don't let 'em sees you sweat.

"Helga, I was wondering if you might…" She licked her cracking lips. "Share."

Holy shit. Olga was asking for… "You must be joking." I stated bluntly, openly slack jawed and wide eyed.

"Bab- Helga, I'm not going to be around for much longer." That weary smile again, like she knew everything and what was good for me. "And it has been published that marijuana is a pain reliving drug. I would rather ingest it with you, little sister, than any other."

I was completely shocked. Helga was asking for…drugs? Pot? Mary Jane? Reefer?

"Uh, s-sure. I'll be right back." Oh my god! I walked quickly out of my room to fetch my little wooden box with a star carved into the lid to return to Olga's room.

I watched her carefully under my hair as I rolled a joint, using my best methods and best pot. I held it aloft to Olga, who took it with a trembling hand. I lit it for her, and she gave a frail cough.

"Suck and hold" I told her. "Inhale and hold the smoke in your lungs for as long as you can."

She followed my instructions and handed the joint to me. I took a quick drag and handed it back. She needed it more than me.

I'll always remember that day. It wasn't long before Mary Jane had worked her magic and spread through Olga's body. She gave a weak giggle.

"Helga, you were always the one who's gonna make it." She told me with a dreamy…well everything. She was stoned.

"Olga, you were always the perfect one." I told her back, taking another short drag. She had to get the most out of it.

"Oh, no, baby sister. You're the one who was always creative, what with you songs and everything. I may be book smart, but you were a street soldier, the poet of the people."

Those words always stick with me.

She died a week later, on the day I lost my virginity to a sweet boy with shaggy, dark hair and puppy dog eyes and a soft mouth, the antithesis of my childhood crush. We had been seeing each other at the club, and this lead to that. It signaled the end of an era, the end of my childhood, in a soft pallet in an artist's loft. I knew that she was dead when Salem walked me home and I found the entire place dark. They had always left the light outside of Olga's room on. It was off.

Salem was sweet, with me fainting on him like that. He took me to the hospital, and that's where I found Miriam and Bob, both completely distraught. Salem let me cry on his shoulder, since Miriam and Bob refused to answer my questions. I learned the official cause of death from a doctor. Heart failure. You'd think that Olga's heart just got too big for her to handle.

Everyone who Olga ever touched was at the funeral a week later. I stood in the back, with Salem, just watching, holding his hand. After everyone left, I walked up to the grave. Salem hung back, gave me space and brought the bike around.

I was tuning up my guitar to play Olga a song when Arnold approached me.

"She was a great woman, Helga, no matter what you think." His voice was bitter. I looked up. Lila was standing a few yards away, behind a tree, watching.

"I know." I told him. I could hear his shock. I pulled a joint out of the bottom of my purse.

"Helga! Is that…pot?" He hissed in a low voice. "You're going to light up on Olga's grave? What kind of monster are you?"

I gave him a small smile, crossing my legs tighter to hold the acoustic guitar and admired the headstone Bob had picked out. A huge angel, hideously ornamental. It was disgusting. She would have loved it.

"You'd be surprised, Football Head." I told him, lighting with a small black disposable.

"I am. I thought you were cold but…you shouldn't do drugs, Helga."

"Says who, Football Head?" I strummed a few lines quickly, before taking a hit. He jerked his head down, and then looked at me again, crouching to look me in the face.

"The government! The Surgeon General!"

"Since when have you been concerned about my health, Arnold? You never really cared about me. I was the mean girl with a bastard for a father and a pretty sister who lived down the block from you. I was a pet project for you, wasn't I? Rehabilitate Helga." I gave a small snort, and took another puff... "Don't worry, Football Head, I don't need your infinite wisdom and guidance anymore."

"What happened to you, Helga?" He searched my eyes for something. I saw, a bit of the flash, of the boy I had loved when I was nine. I smiled, that bone weary smile, and looked down at the joint, with the crooked wrapping, hastily done, and how it looked so small and fragile. The influence Arnold has always had over me edged at my mind, telling me to crush it, to throw it away and ask him to carry me away, into the sunset. But as soon as I thought it, I knew it wouldn't happen. We weren't meant to be, a corny as it sounds. He should be with Lila, make her his princess. It was his fairytale, not mine. Never mine. I was just the wicked stepsister, playing my part to his White Knight. "You've changed so much."

"You're right, Arnold." I told him, Resolve taking a firm hold in my chest, logic ready to do battle with any of those feelings that would pop up. Another hit. "I grew up."

Then he kissed me. It wasn't like the kisses with Salem, the few I've had with him soft and sweet, but Arnold's was slopping, rushed and forced. His tasted bitter and his teeth kind of bumped into mine. I could feel the desperation to have another safe soul under his belt. I could hear Lila gasp and the rev of Salem's bike as he approached.

"Helga." Arnold said as he pulled back. "I love you."

My breath caught. I've been waiting for someone, anyone, say that to me. I closed my eyes, fighting those rampant feelings from spilling out my mouth, in desperation for that love. Logic took place. That son of a bitch. How dare he use that against me, to manipulate me? "No you don't, Arnold. You love humanity." My voice was cold, almost surprisingly so to me. "I'm just a part of it."

I heard him protest. "But…Helga…this is what you've always wanted…"

"You think too much of yourself. Thanks for the writing material. I hope we never see each other again."

"Fine." I heard the leaves crunch as he walked off, Most likely to find Lila. I sang Olga my song. I only sang it that once, and I'm never going to sing it or say it again. I'm sorry.

Salem approached as Arnold left and my song finished. He squatted behind me and hugged me, wrapping his arms around me and resting his chin on my shoulder.

"Everything's going to be all right, Helga. I promise." He whispered in my ear, rubbing my bare arms to warm me up. His warmth penetrated my thin shirt, my pale skin, my heart. He was there. He didn't need to be, but his was. Those bubbly romantic feelings came up from my gut. I loved him, and I was pretty sure he loved me too. My eyes prickled.

"How can you see right through me?" I asked him, roughly wiping at my tears.

"It's a gift." He kissed my cheek and helped me up, letting me lean into him, my guitar knocking against my ankles gently. His arm was around my shoulder, that heat filling me, and I seemed to mold into him. We hadn't walked six steps when Arnold started back tords me, tords us, an angry look on his face.

"Helga!" Arnold squawked as Salem wrapped his motorcycle jacket around me and my thin black t-shirt. "Just what do you think you're doing? This guy is way too old for you!"

I shared a look with Salem, not even giving that self righteous bastard a glance. Without a word on my part, Salem turned glared down Arnold. Lila was almost- No, wait, there go the water works. You know, for being as sensitive as she is, we could have been good friends. Too bad for boys, eh? She was leaning against the same tree, shaking like a leaf. "Hey, kid, I'm not going to say this twice. If Helga doesn't want to talk to you, that means go away."

"Hey, man, watch what you're saying! That's my friend there!" Arnold was growing red around the collar, like I've seen him do so many times when something really pisses him off. Most of the times it was me. I would take any emotion I could from him.

"Look, you little prick; Helga has been thrown around by you too many times to count. I'm stopping it here. You ever contact her again, I'll shoot you. You hear?"

Arnold paled, his eyes bulging. Salem glared down at him with a righteous anger, a sexy sneer that must have been intimidating to the little baseball player spreading across his lips. I wrapped my arm around him, ready to hold him back if he went for the little peckers throat. Salem is as sweet as can be, but when someone hurts one of his loved ones, he goes nuts. A guy beat his mom once. He put him in a coma and got off on self defense. It didn't bother me. I felt safe. He wrapped his arm around me again, directed us at the bike, and started that way.

And we left.

And that's the end.

Well, almost. It's been five years since Olga died. I moved out of Bob and Miriam's house the day I graduated. They didn't notice. I now live in Seattle, with Salem. We have our own apartment above a coffee house, paid for by Salem's now steady job at a local nightclub, bouncing, both of us working at said coffee house, and my occasional modeling jobs. I'm still the It girl, I guess...Oh, and I'm a few months pregnant. Don't tell Salem, I want it to be a surprise. I can all ready tell it's going to be a girl. I'm thinking about Olga for a middle name.

Phoebes is at Harvard Medical. She's going to cure cancer, or AIDS, or something. She doesn't know that I ever smoked anything worse than a cancer stick, as she calls them. We talk on the phone once a week, roughly, and we've sent each other money during the rough times.

I haven't seen or heard from Arnold since the day at the cemetery. I heard from Phoebes that he's a photojournalist major at NYU. I hope I don't have to see him again. That look on his face that day…I don't think I could face him again. But it serves him right. I wasted ten years of my life over him, hiding behind trashcans, for Christ sakes.

But I'm okay. With a mixture of drugs, sex, and death, my childhood died. And I gave it a proper burial, I guess. But hey, that's life, isn't it?


End file.
